For generations of Filipino families living in the country’s most isolated communities, going to school has often meant walking for hours through mountains, crossing rivers without bridges, riding makeshift boats, or studying in classrooms without electricity and source of water. These are daily realities for thousands of learners in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA), where distance continues to restrict educational opportunity, and where a child’s future is determined by where they were born rather than by their potential.
More than 165,000 classrooms are still lacking across the country, while over 51,000 existing classrooms may need to be condemned by 2028 due to age and deterioration, according to the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II). The classroom deficit is projected to rise to more than 200,000 by 2028 if current gaps are not addressed.
Behind these figures are millions of Filipino children whose education is disrupted every day by overcrowded classrooms, shifting schedules, makeshift learning spaces, and aging school […]
The country’s learning crisis begins long before a child enters the classroom. The latest data show that stunting among children under five rose from 23.6% to 25.3%, or about one in every four Filipino children, marking the first increase in the country’s stunting rate in a decade. Senator Loren Legarda warned that no education reform can fully succeed while Filipino children continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition during their earliest years.
The latest findings from the Department of Science and Technology’s […]
For a factory worker who takes home the minimum wage every fifteenth and thirtieth, picking up overtime and holiday shifts just to cover rent and school fees, or a retail employee splitting a 13th-month bonus among bills already due at home, the difference between a fair tax and an unfair one shows up in every payslip.
Senator Loren Legarda has filed a new tax reform measure to make sure that the difference works in favor of Filipino families. Senate Bill No. […]
A ten-story mountain of garbage came crashing down on workers and rescuers in Cebu. In Rizal, 420,000 cubic meters of trash gave way, burying equipment and people whole. For Senator Loren Legarda, the disasters exposed a fundamental failure to enforce the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, as facilities that no longer comply with sanitary landfill standards are, by law and in practice, dump sites whose continued operation endangers lives.
“That’s the point. It’s not a landfill. It’s a dump site. It’s […]
